1) Buried alive (I mean in the dirt, not in a casket. I hate to imagine breathing in dirt)
2) Drowning in my own blood (Internal bleeding scares the hell out of me, but that has to be the biggest one, you know you are going to die, no matter what you do)
3)Being alone in the universe (It scares the hell out of me to think we ARE the only thing in the universe. There has to be more then just us ugly apes)

- People who look at you out of the corner of their eyes while grinning (works almost as well if they are serious or frawning). – Self-doubt. – Audit notice from the tax man… Coo coo, kachoo (I know I’m mixing lyrics, lighten up).

Public speaking, pshaw—-
And having been close to death several times, once they even told me I was dying, I never felt the same frisson I feel on the 40th floor. Of course I never really believed I was dying, so maybe that makes all the difference.

1. Not being able to find my daughter in a public place – I have nightmares about this all the time
2. Something crawling on me (really, it’s those f#*!en spiders)
3. Aliens – the movie SIGNS just did me in…so under the umbrella of “aliens” goes: walking in the dark, driving in the dark, walking by darkened doorways, past darkened halls, orbs, strange lights, and trees….but the anal probing could be fun (hahaha just joking!)

@cyndyh: Ok, cool, but I will definitely not reveal it publicly! If someone guesses it, I will say differently in the thread and PM them the truth that they got it! (Unless I am worried they are one of the wrong people.)

My response to your guess and a clue is that anyone could create little stray bits of paper and use that against me by putting them around me! There’s a specific type of person that I would want not to know I had this fear.

Mine are:
1) Losing one of my children or having them be kidnapped
2) Sharks, specifically being eaten by one while swimming or having a plane crash into the sea, surviving, and then being eaten by a shark.
3) Spiders, but I’m working on that one…

@girl: Carnies? Test questions that end with “Discuss.”? Boyfriends who stare at you while you’re sleeping? Roommates who put their experiments in the fridge unlabeled? Neighbors who make thumping sounds from the other side of the wall? Children who… just children?

@tinyfaery—Does other people’s blood freak you out? I have a major problem with needles, and seeing my own blood makes me sick to my stomach. But I can handle all other kinds of guts and gore with no problem.

Irrational Phobias:
1) Crumbled Styrofoam.
2) Just the idea of being in a small boat, in the middle of the ocean, on a cloudy night, in pitch darkness, rocking back and forth, and listening to the water lap against the side of the boat. I think it would drive me insane. Someone might have to smack me with an oar to keep me from jumping overboard; which is totally irrational. With no other imminent threat, night would pass and most likely we’d see land in the morning. (Unless, of course, we were characters on Lost or something.)

@cyndyh: No, none of those, though I suppose you’d be on the right conceptual track with the “neighbors making thumping sounds.” This fear has nothing to do with neighbors nor sounds, but you got the right idea in that I wouldn’t want certain people (e.g., neighbors), to know about this fear so that they could use it against me (e.g., by thumping on walls).

@augustlan: No, I’m not a Republican.

@funkdaddy: No, and no.

I’ll give another hint and say that this is not some fear that would have no actual consequences. It may be irrational (in that it is statistically extremely unlikely to occur), but it would certainly be a terrifying thing for anyone, were it to happen. I just happen to be specifically afraid of this unlikely occurrence.

@rowenaz I guess I say bizarre because it is very different to me. Do you have an actual phobia of someone touching your face? Because when I say she doesnt like people touching her elbow I mean she “DOES NOT” like it. She will freak the “f” out. She is also afraid of bunnies. Shes a cool girl though very pretty.

@Knotmyday: Your answer was mean! I didn’t care if people were interested—I simply said I wasn’t posting my actual #1 fear. People, on their own, became interested and started guessing.

@everyone who wants to know: Maaaaaaaybe! I am very scared, though! Please indicate your age, sex, and relationship with animals as a child, so I can do some profiling and determine the likelihood that you could be the type of person I’m worried about.

I’ve always had animals, as a child and now. We always had dogs. I didn’t get cats until I was 18 and moved away from home. Couldn’t have dogs in my apt, so got a cat. I’ve both now. I’ve had gerbils and hamsters. Not my faves. My gerbils kept eating their babies and they grossed me out. I had fish and mice. Turtles. Birds. hate birds now tho. I never much cared for hamsters etc. crawling on me tho.
I’ve had dogs that had to be put down because they were too agressive (I’m thinking inbred) and bit my little girl.

Profile away.

I’m the type of person that prefers dogs to ppl. I get upset when I drive past the humane society (and I have to every day) and see the volunteers walking the strays. They’re so happy to be outside. It breaks my heart. I want to save them all.
I report animal abuse. Even helped a kitty find a new home when my neighbor didn’t seem to care about her anymore until i had found her a new home and she was long gone. Police were involved—it was not good. But the kitty is happy.sorry for the rant

@GoS: 24/f, always loved animals. I feel bad when I see animals dead in the road, and once when I hit one, I cried. I always had cats, and a dog, and mice… and reptiles… my cats now are my world. I get sad when I see stray cats and I want to stop my car and scoop them up and bring them home.

And, did anyone ever feel like if they said something out loud, it may come true? This may sound dumb, but I remember telling someone years back how i would be lost without my mother around.
She died suddenly a few months later. It was very, very hard on me. Course it was just coincidence, but still.

I know you said you don’t want to tell anyone else but just in case you feel like sharing (you do owe me one for mistaking me for a middle aged man :P) I am a 16 year old female and love animals. I have two cats right now who are my babies and can always comfort me. We used to have another cat but she died before I understood the concept of death. We’ve had a gorgeous rabbit and many mice and rats, and a few goldfish. I think it’s safe to say that I’m more of a cat person but I love dogs too and love playing with my cousins golden lab. I think when I move out of home I’m going to buy a puppy.

1. Killing my family and friends if they become zombies.
2. Darkness (Would it be scarier if in a movie, the monster was running at you full tilt down a sunny street, or who-knows-where in a network of dark alleys?
See? Always fear of the unknown)
3. Doors that are slightly open
4. Things that sort of look like eyes

@TheOnlyException funny thing, I have to have covers up to my head too! Wonder where that one came from! I’ve never thought about that before!
when I was a kid, I could NOT stand my toes hanging over the edge of the bed! I’m over that one though.

@OneMoreMinute Oh no i still have that thing with toes and feet and legs hanging over the edge of the bed! and i am pretty sure i will never get over it. i don’t mind though.
even in summer i need a sheet to cover me.
I don’t know why that is, I know I am afraid of the dark but the logic in my brain tells me even if THERE IS an axe murderer in my room, a duvet or a sheet certainly isn’t going to stop him.
yet i do it anyway..0_o
apparently a fear of the dark comes from something bad happening to you in the dark, it could even be someone jumping out at you from the dark as a joke, when you are that young your brain is still forming psychological reactions to things and it thinks ‘hey when you were in the dark, you got scared, i am going to make sure you are never in the dark again”
and thus makes you AFRAID of the dark, so you are less likely to be in the dark where the ‘danger’ is. and when you are in the dark every bone in your body is telling you to get out, it is your brain trying to warn you, even though it is perfectly safe.
bless.

@TheOnlyException I believe you are quite right.
When I was a kid I had several OCD ritual of things that had to be right, in order for me to sleep.
Door ajar.
Some type of low light-could not tolerate complete darkness.
Closet door completely closed, or the clothes turned into monsters.
Sheets and blankets pulled up to my neck, sometimes over my head.
No body parts withing a foot of the edge of the bed, or the monster under the bed would claw me.
Goodnight kisses and prayers. A must.
I had to have my cat with me. This was the most important.

what do you make of this crazy list? I’m sure most kids were the same.

@OneMoreMinute That all makes perfect sense to me. Sometimes, on the worst nights even if the door was open and a lot of light was going through, even the parts of the room that were dark would bother me. I would hear bumps and things and assume someone had broken into the house to come and kill me. So ridiculous!
The funny thing is, I can easily walk around a dark street in the middle of the night by myself, even if it is deserted, without looking over my shoulder, but home, safe, in my bed, that’s when it bothers me. I just don’t understand!
There is this thing called exposure therapy, where, over the course of a few weeks, maybe months, you are exposed to progressively darker rooms for longer periods of time. Once you are forced to get past the anxiety, your brain should ‘learn’ that it is not such a bad place to be after all.
It seems like it would work, but may shake me up a bit, so I don’t know if I am willing to try it, depends how bad this fear influences my life.
Do you find that if you have had a really good day, i.e. lots of good things to think back on and laugh and at occupy your mind, you don’t pay attention to the dark at all?

@TheOnlyException For the past 20 years or so….the darkness no longer scares me. Nor being alone, or alone in the dark.
But I don’t know why I still have to have a sheet on!
Maybe I need to get scared “Sheetless!”
;-)